Friday, July 31, 2015

Inclusivity Rising

So, I have a bit of a habit. I’m not willing to call it a ‘bad’
habit, because it does me a heck of a lot of good. But from the viewpoint of
the organizers for the various cons I attend? Yeah, it might be a bit bad.

Perhaps ‘talent’ is a better term. Or ‘sheer dumb luck.’

I tend to find backdoors to the schedules for conventions
and see them before they’re put up (I’m now risking them blocking those links
by coming clean, but it’s important to know how I know what’s going on.). I don’t
even try is the thing. I google something about the convention and all the
sudden I’m into the schedule they haven’t linked or, oftentimes, haven’t even
finalized. (No, I’m not sharing the links. Then they’d be onto me for sure…)

So I know that at this year’s Worldcon, there are an
inordinate amount of panels on diversity. Racial, cultural, gender, sexual. You
name it. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not this was done as a way
to give a discreet finger to the Sad and/or Rabid Puppies (I really doubt it
is, myself), but the fact is that these are on the docket.

That’s interesting enough as it is, but then I started
thinking a little deeper. RWA (Romance Writers of America) just had their
national conference last week. One of the takeaways I’m seeing from a lot of
the attendees is an overwhelming number of panels on diversity in fiction
there, too. Far higher than at previous RWA conferences.

Now, I don’t know how far in advance these have been planned
for the schedule. Maybe all of these were planned back in January. But I do
find it odd that, right as soon as marriage inequality was made illegal (Because
that’s what happened, technically. No laws were changed or created or anything.
The interpretation was simply re-examined.), diversity panels come into play.
As soon as people start noticing the treatment of black people in the US, we
start to see panels on Afrofuturism.

I don’t think that it is directly connected to the Supreme
Court ruling. But I think what we’re seeing is the beginning of something more.
We’re seeing people not just wishing that they could be included in things, but
people wishing that everyone could
start to be included. In books and movies and comics, but also in real life. I
think it’s been building, but this year, just over halfway complete, has been
full of huge movements toward inclusivity. I love it, too.

I also think that’s why there’s backlash. It happens
whenever there’s a large change coming down the pipeway. Look at the publishing
industry itself. When self-publishing became an actual, viable option, New York
publishers fought harder and harder against it. And what happened? The big six eventually
became the big five before they accepted the change to the status quo. And
honestly? I don’t think it’s been fully accepted, yet.

And neither has equality and inclusivity. Not yet. But I
think we’re headed there. Or I hope we are, at the very least. Because that’s
what I long to see: everyone just getting along. It’s not going to be an easy
road, and the work’s nowhere even close to halfway done, but the support is
growing. And I think that basically fucking rocks.